Re: Why not let kids be kids?

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

Deb and Jay - I think public provision of decent preschool education  
would be great. But who is to decide what "decent" means?

I'm reminded of Linda Perlstein's extraordinary book, Tested.  
Perlstein painfully documents the dumbed-down, test-centric path the  
school follows to make AYP. In reading this book, I was saddened,  
enraged, and disgusted. After being exposed to a constant regimen of  
"BCR's" (brief constructed responses), decoding drills, and endless  
test prep, it's amazing that any of these kids would ever want to  
read anything ever again.

My concern is that this will be the fate of so-called "high-quality,  
universal pre-K," esp. for low-income minority children.

Peter


On Mar 17, 2008, at 5:11 PM, Deborah Meier wrote:
> Incidentally, re being able to read by third grade, note that in the
> nations with the highest literacy--like Finland--they don't start to
> learn to read until 2nd grade.
>
> We're born "ready" to learn. I hate that "angst" as Jay Featherstone
> refers to it. If that's what it takes to get PreK maybe we should do
> without it for a while longer. Children need safey, nurturing places
> with lots of "stuff" to play with, folks to read to them, sing to
> them, dance with them, etc. The rest is dangerous to their health and
> welfare.
>
> Best, Deb
>
> On 3/17/08, Jay Featherstone <josfe@msu.edu> wrote:
> > Dear Peter, I agree with your arguments, so well-stated. Yet I
> > think public provision of decent preschool education would be
> > terrific, and is partly floating as a possibility on all this angst.
> >
> > J
> >